Meet Maria Teresa Horta

Writer and journalist Maria Teresa Horta is one of Portugal’s most prominent feminists and the author of many award-winning books, but she is perhaps best known as the co-author of the internationally acclaimed Novas Cartas Portuguesas (New Portuguese Letters), written with Maria Isabel Barreno and Maria Velho da Costa.  

The collection of fiction, poetry, and erotica was quickly banned in 1972 by Portugal’s authoritarian government, and Horta and her fellow co-authors stood trial for obscenity and “abusing the freedom of the press”.  The case of the Three Marias, as they became known, made headlines and inspired protests worldwide.  

Their trial ended after the 1974 Carnation Revolution brought down the regime and this year marks the 50th anniversary of that historic moment.  

Early life and career

Born in Lisbon in 1937, Horta began publishing poetry at twenty-one with O Diário de uma Mulfer (A Woman’s Diary), a volume whose frank female desire already rattled conservative critics. Over six decades she has produced more than forty books of poetry, novels, essays, plays, and children’s stories, gathering every major Portuguese literary prize while founding feminist newspapers, women’s bookshops, and the first shelter for battered women in Lisbon.  

Her poetry, translated into twenty languages, fuses erotic candour with political steel; lines such as “my body is not a nation for your war” became rallying cries at 1970s demonstrations. After the dictatorship fell, she co-created the feminist press Alef–Livraria das Mulheres, still operating today, and edited the groundbreaking anthology Escritoras Portuguesas 1945-1995, reclaiming forgotten female voices.  

Internationally, she has lectured at Columbia, Sorbonne Nouvelle, and Rio de Janeiro, receiving the 2021 European Poet of Freedom Award for the lifetime conviction that “poetry is an act of disobedience.” A new bilingual selected poem, Tongue of Fire, is forthcoming in 2024, and she continues to post daily verses on social media to 200,000 followers under the hashtag #MariaTeresaHortaAgora.